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Publications by Stepha Velednitsky

Geography Compass, 2020

Given the centrality of land, territory, and sovereignty to settler colonial formations, it is un... more Given the centrality of land, territory, and sovereignty to settler colonial formations, it is unsurprising that geographers and other scholars working on such topics are increasingly finding settler colonial studies fruitful in their research agendas. However, work on settler polities in political geography has historically been marked by the present absence of this framework, which has been consequential in terms of circumscribing the kinds of political analysis that geographers can offer. It also limits the nature, depth, and scope of radical critique of violent domination by skirting certain questions about the core drivers of dispossession and responsibility for them. This article examines political geographical engagement (or lack thereof) across each of four themes: population management/governance, terri-tory/sovereignty, consciousness, and narrative, paying particular attention to works which challenge the present absence of settler colonial theory in political geography. We argue that analyzing settler colonial formations as such is essential to conceptualizing their workings and linkages or disjunctures with other forms of empire. Yet this focus also has broader political stakes related to geography's complicity with racialized state power, violence, and empire, as well as and efforts to decolonize the discipline. K E Y W O R D S biopolitics, consciousness, decolonizing geography, narrative, political geography, present absence, settler colonialism, territory

Book Reviews by Stepha Velednitsky

Society and Space, 2018

A review of Andy Clarno's "Neoliberal Apartheid" (2017), published in the Society and Space Revie... more A review of Andy Clarno's "Neoliberal Apartheid" (2017), published in the Society and Space Reviews section.

Syllabi by Stepha Velednitsky

This syllabus, written with both academic and non-academic audiences in mind, opens with a popula... more This syllabus, written with both academic and non-academic audiences in mind, opens with a popular article published with the digital publication Edge Effects.

Popular Media by Stepha Velednitsky

This series of reflections, published in the digital publication Edge Effects, takes up psychogeo... more This series of reflections, published in the digital publication Edge Effects, takes up psychogeographic and situationist approaches to space.

My podcast interview with Jason W. Moore examines the "capitalocene" as a phenomenon produced thr... more My podcast interview with Jason W. Moore examines the "capitalocene" as a phenomenon produced through colonial relations of gender, race, and class. We touch on the roles of "cheapening" as a strategy, the pitfalls and opportunities of environmental technologies, and, drawing on the Movement for Black Lives Party Platform, the scope and shape of ecological reparations as a political framework.

Theses by Stepha Velednitsky

The transboundary environmental justice movement is a rapidly growing response to globalizing str... more The transboundary environmental justice movement is a rapidly growing response to globalizing structures of resource extraction and social exploitation. This paper discusses Schools for Chiapas, a San Diego-based environmental justice organization that works to support the Zapatista movement. Among many projects, the organization collaborates with indigenous Maya communities to restore traditional beekeeping with the native bee Melipona beecheii, which is an essential actor within Maya culture and local ecosystems. Throughout their work, Schools for Chiapas negotiates complex power structures that inhere in this style of organizing in order to address the mutually-reinforcing colonial processes of environmental and social exploitation. Because the Melipona restoration project works through traditional Maya decision-making structures to restore a traditional indigenous beekeeping practice, it holds decolonial potential both in process and in outcome. As such, it serves as a valuable model for other environmental justice efforts with indigenous communities.

Geography Compass, 2020

Given the centrality of land, territory, and sovereignty to settler colonial formations, it is un... more Given the centrality of land, territory, and sovereignty to settler colonial formations, it is unsurprising that geographers and other scholars working on such topics are increasingly finding settler colonial studies fruitful in their research agendas. However, work on settler polities in political geography has historically been marked by the present absence of this framework, which has been consequential in terms of circumscribing the kinds of political analysis that geographers can offer. It also limits the nature, depth, and scope of radical critique of violent domination by skirting certain questions about the core drivers of dispossession and responsibility for them. This article examines political geographical engagement (or lack thereof) across each of four themes: population management/governance, terri-tory/sovereignty, consciousness, and narrative, paying particular attention to works which challenge the present absence of settler colonial theory in political geography. We argue that analyzing settler colonial formations as such is essential to conceptualizing their workings and linkages or disjunctures with other forms of empire. Yet this focus also has broader political stakes related to geography's complicity with racialized state power, violence, and empire, as well as and efforts to decolonize the discipline. K E Y W O R D S biopolitics, consciousness, decolonizing geography, narrative, political geography, present absence, settler colonialism, territory

Society and Space, 2018

A review of Andy Clarno's "Neoliberal Apartheid" (2017), published in the Society and Space Revie... more A review of Andy Clarno's "Neoliberal Apartheid" (2017), published in the Society and Space Reviews section.

This syllabus, written with both academic and non-academic audiences in mind, opens with a popula... more This syllabus, written with both academic and non-academic audiences in mind, opens with a popular article published with the digital publication Edge Effects.

This series of reflections, published in the digital publication Edge Effects, takes up psychogeo... more This series of reflections, published in the digital publication Edge Effects, takes up psychogeographic and situationist approaches to space.

My podcast interview with Jason W. Moore examines the "capitalocene" as a phenomenon produced thr... more My podcast interview with Jason W. Moore examines the "capitalocene" as a phenomenon produced through colonial relations of gender, race, and class. We touch on the roles of "cheapening" as a strategy, the pitfalls and opportunities of environmental technologies, and, drawing on the Movement for Black Lives Party Platform, the scope and shape of ecological reparations as a political framework.

The transboundary environmental justice movement is a rapidly growing response to globalizing str... more The transboundary environmental justice movement is a rapidly growing response to globalizing structures of resource extraction and social exploitation. This paper discusses Schools for Chiapas, a San Diego-based environmental justice organization that works to support the Zapatista movement. Among many projects, the organization collaborates with indigenous Maya communities to restore traditional beekeeping with the native bee Melipona beecheii, which is an essential actor within Maya culture and local ecosystems. Throughout their work, Schools for Chiapas negotiates complex power structures that inhere in this style of organizing in order to address the mutually-reinforcing colonial processes of environmental and social exploitation. Because the Melipona restoration project works through traditional Maya decision-making structures to restore a traditional indigenous beekeeping practice, it holds decolonial potential both in process and in outcome. As such, it serves as a valuable model for other environmental justice efforts with indigenous communities.